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SANCTUARY
By Donald Sullivan
Amy Stewart pulled out of the truck stop parking lot shortly after midnight. She was dead tired from waiting tables at the truck stop cafe for the past eight hours. She turned east on State Road 24, crossed over the interstate, and sped toward home. About twenty minutes and she would be soaking in a good hot bath, and then she'd slip between the fresh, clean sheets for a good night's sleep.
She'd gone but a couple of miles when her headlights picked up an animal crossing the road. She swerved to the left to avoid the creature, hit her brakes, and skidded into the ditch. She was shaken, but unhurt. The car, however, was stuck fast in the soft mud of the ditch. Her efforts to pull out only spun the wheels, sinking the car deeper into the mud.
"Of all the dumb tricks. And it had to happen in the dead of night a thousand miles from nowhere." She looked at the dark wall of trees on either side of the road. "There won't be any traffic on this stretch of road until people start going to work in the morning. No way I'm going to wait here. No choice but to walk back to the truck stop and call Dad."
She guessed she could walk to the truck stop in a little over thirty minutes. "Great. Just what I need after being on my feet all day." She opened the trunk, pulled a flashlight from the road emergency kit, and set out. She knew that she would pass a few houses along the way, but she decided against stopping for help at this late hour.
She'd been walking but a few minutes when she saw lightning up ahead, followed by a clap of thunder. Moments later she felt a few drops of rain. As she turned to run back to the car, a flash of lightning revealed a house off to her left. She recognized it as the Graves place. Old John Graves had died last year, and the house was now unoccupied. A couple from up north had bought the house and planned to retire here in a few years.
The rain was coming down stronger now. Amy ran up the steps and onto the porch of the old house. She discovered that the door had been jimmied open, probably by vandals. She turned on her flashlight and entered.
Nothing seemed to be disturbed. Stories of old John still prowling around the house probably kept young vandals from entering. Amy had no fear of the dead, but she did fear lightning, and was relieved to find shelter in the old house.
To pass the time until the storm blew over, she set out exploring the old house. The furniture had not been covered and was collecting a considerable amount of dust and mold. A musty odor pervaded the house.
As she wandered through the house, she thought of Billy Joe Prescott, a young truck driver she had met only weeks ago. Billy Joe believed in ghosts and such, and she laughed to herself as she wondered how he would react to this situation.
She had only recently met Billy Joe, but she was surprised at how well she and the lanky young redhead got on, almost as if they were old friends. Except for his belief in the occult, they shared many interests. She sometimes teased him about his beliefs, but he would just laugh and come back with good natured jibes of his own.
She remembered something he had once told her: "I like my women spooky, but a cute blonde like you is just too sexy to fit the bill." She smiled to herself as she wandered through the old house.
She went up the creaky stairs and into the bedroom on the second floor. There was nothing in the bedroom except an old double bed, a wooden chair, and a nightstand. She opened the drawer of the night stand to discover some old newspaper clippings. Curious, she sat down in the chair and began to read the yellowed clippings.
The clippings concerned the murder of John's wife, Jessica. The murder had taken place twelve years ago; Amy was but ten at the time and could barely recall the incident.
According to the clippings, John was charged with the murder. John confessed and the case seemed cut and dried. But during interrogation, one of the officers lost his temper and struck John, and some of the evidence was obtained through questionable means. Eventually, John was found not guilty of Jessica's murder.
One of the clippings caught Amy's eye. According to a tabloid, John feared meeting Jessica in the spirit world after his own death. He had consulted a spiritualist about finding a sanctuary for his spirit where Jessica could not find him. According to the spiritualist, she had advised John that as long as his spirit remained in the old house, he would be safe from the vengeful spirit of Jessica.
Amy noted that the rain had stopped and the thunder was now a barely audible rumble. As she rose from the chair, she heard footsteps coming from below. Someone else must have come in seeking shelter from the storm, maybe a hitchhiker who had lost his way.
"Hello. Who's down there?" The footsteps stopped momentarily and then started again. There was no reply. She called out again, but there was still no reply. Probably someone trying to scare her, she thought. Well, they had picked the wrong person.
"I don't know who you are or what you're up to, but if you're trying to scare me you're wasting your time." The footsteps stopped again, but a moment later she heard the stairs creaking.
It came to her that she might be dealing with some kind of weirdo. She turned off her flashlight and positioned herself by the door. The flashlight was the heavy duty type and would serve as a club. When the door opened, she would club him with the flashlight and then knee him in the groin. She hoped this would give her time to leave the house and flee into the woods and hide before he recovered.
What happened next was totally unexpected. The door did not open, but whatever was there simply came through the door as if it did not exist. The room grew dank and cold, and a foul smell filled her nostrils. She flicked on the flashlight to see a tall, shadowy figure standing before her. But it was the face that shocked her. It was the same face as the picture she had seen in the clippings--the face of John Graves.
Its sallow face was expressionless; only the eyes seemed to be alive. She held the flashlight beam on its face, but its eyes seemed to look through the beam directly into her eyes.
She began to recover. This was some kind of trick, using projectors and mirrors. Someone had set this up, just waiting for an unsuspecting person to enter the old house.
The apparition opened its mouth and spoke in a raspy whisper. "Why have you come to my sanctuary?"
Okay. She would play along with his little game and psyche him out. "I came in to get out of the rain. Now suppose you tell me what you're doing here."
It ignored her comment. "I am lonely here. Come and join me in my sanctuary." It held out its hand.
Amy backed away, but as she did, she felt its hand touch her wrist. It was icy cold, sending chills through her body. This was something that could not be done with projectors and mirrors. And there was the drop in temperature and the sickening odor. Fear was starting to set in--was she actually facing the ghost of a murderer?
She remembered that she had heard the creaking of the stairs as it ascended. If there were such things as ghosts, they would have no weight to make stairs creak. But Billy Joe had once mentioned that evil spirits could materialize and take on a solid body, and such spirits delighted in making noises to terrorize the living. But Amy rejected such notions; she was convinced that this was a prank; there were simply no such thing as ghosts.
The apparition came toward her, still holding out its hand. "Give me your hand," it whispered. "You will be with me for eternity."
She continued to play along. "And what if I refuse?"
"It is too late to refuse." The thing reached out, and its hand encircled her wrist, holding her in a vice-like grip. She tried pulling away, but its grip was too powerful. The cold from its hand was almost unbearable. She felt the cold creeping up her arm, and soon her upper body was beginning to feel the chill.
"Even now I sense your life draining away," it whispered. "Soon you will join me in my sanctuary."
Amy was growing weaker. She struggled vainly to escape the iron grip of the thing that was John Graves. She felt her consciousness fading as the cold crept through her body. She knew that if she lost consciousness, that would be the end. In her mind she could picture someone finding her car in the ditch and then her body in the old house.
Desperately, she began to think, and from somewhere, an idea came to her. It was an idea born of desperation--a drowning man clutching at straws. But she would not simply give up without a fight. She remembered the clipping about John's fear of meeting Jessica in the spirit world.
She summoned all the bravado she could muster. "John Graves, I am a spiritualist."
"That does not matter to me."
"But it does matter, John. I have been in contact with Jessica." She felt its grip loosen slightly. "Jessica wants to find you. If you do not release me immediately, I'll summon her here to your sanctuary."
"You are trying to deceive me."
"Do you think it's just by chance that I'm here, John? If you don't release me, you will find to your sorrow that I am telling the truth."
Slowly, she felt the grip on her wrist loosen. Her arm began to tingle as warmth flowed back into her body. She made to pull away. But as she did so, it reached out and again caught her in its grip.
"I will not be deceived."
There was no hope now. It had seen through her feeble attempt to escape. But she had deceived the thing, if only for a moment. Perhaps if she followed through, she might gain enough time to pull free and run from the house.
"I warned you, John. I will now summon Jessica." She closed her eyes. "O Spirit of Jessica, I..."
A fearful moan escaped its lips as it released her wrist. Amy opened her eyes to see a glowing light. In the center of the light stood Jessica. Jessica stepped forward and took John's hand.
"Come with me, John," she said, and they both vanished.
Amy rushed outside into the warm, humid summer air and hurried away from the old house. She resumed her trek toward the truck stop, half expecting the shadowy figure of old John to appear before her.
She would never know how or why the spirit of Jessica appeared. Perhaps John remained in a materialized state too long, allowing Jessica to find him. Or perhaps her feigned summons had really worked. There was no way of knowing.
Amy could never tell anyone of her horrifying experience--people would laugh; they would think she was making the whole thing up. But it dawned on her that there was one person who would listen to her. Billy Joe. Thank Goodness, she could confide in him, and he would understand.
Amy was exhausted in body and spirit as she trudged along through the dark. But her spirits lifted when she saw the bright lights of the truck stop up ahead.
***THE END***
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